Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

1 Martin V. Melosi, “Path Dependence and Urban History: Is a Marriage Possible?” in Resources of the City: Contributions to an Environmental History of Modern Europe, ed. Dieter Schott, Bill Luckin, and Genevieve Massard-Guilbaud (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 262. A major debate within the economic profession unfolded over whether “history matters” after Paul David’s essay on the subject, “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” American Economic Review 75, no. 2 (1985), 332–37.

2 R. C. Brown, “The Doctrine of Usefulness,” in Canadian Parks in Perspective, ed. J. G. Nelson and R. C. Scace (Montreal: Harvest House, 1970), 46–62.

3 The standard account of Canada’s national parks policy is Fergus Lothian’s four-volume A History of Canada’s National Parks (Ottawa: Parks Canada, 1976). Despite its length, it is a narrowly constructed compendium of the administrative histories of each park. At the polemical end of the spectrum, Leslie Bella proffers a history of parks policy centred on the thesis that rather than promoting preservation, they leaned toward making a profit from tourism. Leslie Bella, Parks for Profit (Montreal: Harvest House, 1987). For the development of national park policy from a political science perspective, see Paul Kopas, Taking the Air: Ideas and Change in Canada’s National Parks (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007). Although Kopas focuses on the rise of ecological influences after the 1950s, he does offer a brief overview of the earlier evolution of policy development. Ecological integrity, the main principle underlying the 1988 National Parks Act, is an example of the elevation of an abstraction to a policy goal. E. J. Hart’s recent biography, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2011), is a de facto history of parks policy from 1911 to 1936. For focused studies of the application of policy in individual cases, see the Parks Canada centennial collection of essays edited by Claire Campbell, A Century of Parks Canada, 1911–2011 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2011). As for Banff National Park per se, E. J. Hart’s two volumes, The Place of the Bows and The Battle for Banff (Banff: EJH Literary Enterprises, 1999 and 2003) is the place to start. Walter Hildebrandt’s insightful study of park history for the Banff-Bow Valley Task Force is the best brief guide: An Historical Analysis of Parks Canada and Banff National Park, 1968–1995 (Banff: Banff-Bow Valley Task Force, 1995).

4 William Cronon launched the debate in a provocative essay, “The Problem with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” published in a collection that he edited, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature (New York: Norton, 1995), 69–90. The first issue of Environmental History republished this essay along with surprisingly intense responses from Thomas Dunlap, Sam Hays, and Michael Cohen, and Cronon’s reply. Environmental History 1 (1996): 7–55. For the influence of Cronon’s essay, see Char Miller, “An Open Field,” Pacific Historical Review 70 (2001): 71–74, and Thomas R. Dunlap, Faith in Nature: Environmentalism as Religious Quest (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), ch. 3.

5 J. G. Nelson set things in motion with his early paper “Man and Landscape Change in Banff National Park: A National Park Problem in Perspective,” in Nelson and Scace, Canadian Parks in Perspective, 63–98.

6 On Native-set fires, the role of humans in shaping the ecology, and the removal of Native people and settlers from the area designated to be Jasper National Park, see I. S. MacLaren, “Cultured Wilderness in Jasper National Park,” Journal of Canadian Studies 34 (1999): 7–58. Ted Binnema and Melanie Niemi argue that hunters’ organizations and elite sportsmen, rather than wilderness enthusiasts, played a leading role in the removal of Native people from national parks. “Let the Line Be Drawn Now: Wilderness, Conservation, and the Exclusion of Aboriginal People from Banff National Park,” Environmental History 11 (2006): 724–50. Mark David Spence could be said to have begun this re-evaluation of the impact of park-making on Native peoples with his book Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of National Parks (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Karl Jacoby followed with the more sensational Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves and the Hidden History of American Conservation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). In Canada, Bruce Hodgins and Kerry Cannon first broached this subject in “The Aboriginal Presence in Ontario Parks and Other Protected Places,” in Changing Parks: The History, Future and Cultural Context of Parks and Heritage Landscapes, ed. John Marsh and Bruce Hodgins (Toronto: Natural Heritage, 1998), 50–76. John Sandlos explores a similar theme within the wildlife conservation movement in Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2007).

7 The Alberta Wilderness Association keeps the idea alive (www.AlbertaWilderness.ca), as does the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (www.cpaws.org) and a contemporary RV motorhome brand that goes by the name “Wilderness.”

8 This amiable contradiction is reflected in the titles of two recent books on the subject that examine the role of the automobile at both ends of the “wilderness” spectrum: David Loutor, Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads and Nature in Washington’s National Parks (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), and Driven Wild: How the Fight against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002). We contributed a paper on the role of the automobile in the shaping of Banff National Park to the 2008 T2M (Transportation, Technology, and Mobility) Conference in Ottawa: “Car Park: The Influence of Auto Tourism on Banff National Park.” See also Amy Larin, “A Rough Ride: Automobiles in Banff National Park, 1905–1918,” Alberta History (Winter 2008): 2–9. Several of the essays in I. S. MacLaren’s edited collection on the fur trade, homesteading, tourism, and ecological restoration expand on the theme of prior occupation and human landscape modification: Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2007).

9 Whyte Museum, National Parks Papers, M317, file 3, Changes in Boundaries and Areas of National Parks. For a brief history of national park policy, see Ian Attridge, “Canadian Parks Legislation: Past, Present and Prospects,” in Marsh and Hodgins, Changing Parks, 221–37.

10 Joel Tarr’s books and essays over the years have applied the concept of path dependence and urban metabolism. See, for example, “Sewerage and the Development of the Networked City in the United States, 1850–1930,” in Technology and the Rise of the Networked City in Europe and America, ed. Joel Tarr and Gabriel Dupuy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 159–85; The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective (Akron: University of Akron Press, 1996); “The Metabolism of the Industrial City: The Case of Pittsburgh,” Journal of Urban History 28 (2002): 511–45; with Terry F. Yosie, “Critical Decisions in Pittsburgh Water and Wastewater Treatment,” in Devastation and Renewal, ed. Joel Tarr (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh, 2003), 64–88; with Clay McShane, The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

11 In addition to the essay referenced in note 1 above, see Melosi’s Garbage in the Cities: Refuse Reform and the Environment (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988); The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Effluent America: Cities, Industry, Energy and the Environment (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001); with Joseph Pratt, eds., Energy Metropolis: An Environmental History of Houston and the Gulf Coast (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007).

12 Donald Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); The Wealth of Nature: Environmental History and the Ecological Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

13 William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1996). It is a pleasure to acknowledge the influence of this book, inspired as it is in part by the “metropolitanism” tradition of Canadian historiography.

14 Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995). One observation that White made in passing about taking a moral approach to railroad businessmen in his most recent book confirms our feelings about the utilities magnates: “If the goal is to have great villains or powerful heroes, don’t read the mail of the men who ran the transcontinentals.” Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York: Norton, 2011), 233.

15 C. Armstrong and H. V. Nelles, “Competition vs. Convenience: Federal Administration of Bow River Waterpowers, 1906–1913,” in The Canadian West, ed. Henry Klassen (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1977), 163–80; Monopoly’s Moment: The Organization and Regulation of Canadian Utilities, 1830–1930 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986); Southern Exposure: Canadian Promoters in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1896–1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988); and with Matthew Evenden, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009). As this book was in press we received a copy of Powering Generations: The TransAlta Story, 1911–2011 (Calgary: TransAlta, 2011), written by Dr. Robert Page and David A French. We had supplied the authors with pre-publication drafts of earlier versions of this account which assisted them in their project. Their beautifully illustrated account of the whole range of company activities provides context for our focused examination of hydroelectric development by the company on the Bow.

CHAPTER 1: WATER FALLS

1 Vaclav Smil’s primer, Energy in World History (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), places the development of waterpower and, subsequently, hydroelectricity in the context of the broader energy-use patterns of Western civilization. Louis Hunter documents changing waterpower technology and applications in America in Waterpower: A History of Industrial Power in America, 1780–1930 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1979).

2 There is a vast literature on electrification, to which we have contributed our mite. Peter Hertner, Will Haussman, and Mira Wilkins provide a global view of the process, emphasizing the role of multinational enterprise, in Global Electrification (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), which contains an excellent bibliography. For the development of electric technology, the most accessible account is Jill Jones, Empires of Light (New York: Random House, 2004). Thomas P. Hughes analyzes system development in the United States, Britain, and Germany in Networks of Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983). Harold C. Passer’s The Electrical Manufacturers (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953) remains the best treatment of the rise of the equipment industry. David E. Nye examines the social processes and implications of electrification in Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992); Harold L. Platt’s The Electric City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991) offers the best account of the electrification of a city, Chicago. The most comprehensive but daunting national history of electricity, the electrical industry, and electrification is the three-volume compendium edited by François Caron, Fabienne Cardot, Henri Morsel, and Maurice Lévy-Leboyer, Histoire de l’ Électricité en France (Paris: Fayard, 1991, 1994, 1996). We have written a history of the rise of the domestic Canadian electric industry, Monopoly’s Moment: The Organization and Regulation of Canadian Utilities (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), and of electric enterprises abroad, Southern Exposure: Canadian Promoters in Latin America and the Caribbean (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988). No one has attempted an assessment of the Canadian electric industry over the entire twentieth century, though H. V. Nelles has made a gesture at it: “Hydro and After: The Canadian Experience with the Organization, Nationalization and Deregulation of Electrical Utilities,” Annales Historique de l’électricité 1 (Juin 2003): 117–32.

3 Until recently, Canada was the world leader in total hydroelectric production, but within the last few years, it has been overtaken by China, with its massive river projects. For details, see the US Energy Information Administration website: www.eia.gov/emeu/international/electricitygeneration.html.

4 Leo G. Denis and Arther V. White, Water-Powers of Canada (Ottawa: Commission of Conservation, 1911).

5 On the early history of Calgary, see George A. Nader, Profiles of Fifteen Metropolitan Centres, vol. 2 of Cities of Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976), 333ff; Max Foran, Calgary: An Illustrated History (Toronto: Lorimer, 1978); A. Rasporich and H. Klassen, eds., Frontier Calgary: Town, City and Region 1875–1914 (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1976).

6 The convoluted history of the early electrification of Calgary is dealt with in impressive documentary detail in W. E. Hawkins, Electrifying Calgary: A Century of Public and Private Power (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987), 1–72.

7 GA, CPC, box 1, MB, June 1890–July 1920; box 4, file 8, Ordinance of Incorporation, Calgary Water Power Company, 1889–94; box 1, Licence, Department of the Interior, December 15, 1897, for right to divert water for use of steam engine; box 3, Map of the Mill and Its Water System, undated; GA M1565, Incorporation Document and Plan for the Proposed Bow River Dam at Calgary, November 11, 1889; GA, Peter A. Prince Fonds; Hawkins, Electrifying Calgary, ch. 2.

8 C. Armstrong, M. Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), chs. 4 and 5; Hawkins, Electrifying Calgary, ch. 2.

9 GA, CPC, box 1, file 1, shareholders’ meeting, Calgary Water Power Company, July 17, 1903; MB, June 10, 1905; GA, Calgary Council minutes, July 16, 1903, September 24, 1904, March 20, July 13, 1905.

10 Ted Binnema offers the most sophisticated analysis of pre-contact land use in Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of the Northwestern Plains (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).

11 Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, River Returns, chs. 2, 3, and 4.

12 The most accessible and comprehensive description of the Bow River can be found in Bow River Basin Council, The 2005 Report on the State of the Bow River Basin (Calgary: Bow River Basin Council, 2005), also available at www.brbc.ab.ca.

13 Walter Hildebrandt, Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, Dorothy First Rider, and Sarah Carter, eds., The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996); GA, Map Collection, G3503 IR 142, 1889, 1890 C212.

14 Quoted in Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, River Returns, 271ff; E. J. Hart fleshes out the story with lots of local detail in The Place of Bows: Exploring the Heritage of the Banff-Bow Valley, Part 1 to 1830 (Banff: EJH Literary Enterprises, 1999), 9–114; Whyte Museum, M317, Canadian Parks Service Papers, F17, L. A. Taylor, “The Cave and Basin – Birthplace of National Parks,” Background Information Document, March 31, 1978; University of Alberta Archives, William Pearce Papers, acc. 74–169, vol. 51, files 473–74, Letterbooks, 1886.

15 For a map, see Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, River Returns, 284; see also Geoffrey Wall, “Recreational Lands,” in Addressing the Twentieth Century, vol. 3 of Historical Atlas of Canada, ed. Donald Kerr and Derek Holdsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1990), plate 36; Whyte Museum, M317, Canadian Parks Service Papers, F3, memorandum from S. F. Kun to Maryalice Stewart, October 9, 1974, enclosing a memo by J. E. Spero on boundary changes at Banff. See also F4, a manuscript history of the park, 1975.

16 Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, River Returns, ch. 10; Hart, Place of Bows, 114–230; Bart Robinson, Banff Springs: The Story of a Hotel (Banff: Summerthought, 1988); E. J. Hart, The Selling of Canada: The CPR and the Beginning of Canadian Tourism (Banff: Altitude, 1983).

17 Leo Denis and J. B. Challies, Water Powers of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (Ottawa: Commission of Conservation, 1914), 197.

CHAPTER 2: POWER STRUGGLE

1 See William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis (New York: Norton, 1992) for the classic development of this idea using Chicago as the example.

2 For 1903 and 1905 episodes of investigation, see W. E. Hawkins, Electrifying Calgary: A Century of Public and Private Power (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987), 108.

3 LAC, RG 85, vol. 737, file R1436-3-5, W. M. Alexander and W. J. Budd to the Minister of the Interior, December 21, 1906.

4 For a fuller discussion of the North West Irrigation Act, its adoption, implementation and subsequent modification, see C. Armstrong, M. Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), 155–56, 329–30.

5 LAC, RG 10, vol. 3563, file 82, part 16, C10099, Frank Oliver to Clifford Sifton, July 1, 1903.

6 In one of those ironies of politics, Frank Oliver, as the newly appointed minister of the interior in 1905, ruled that waterpower licences on Indian reserves could be granted under the North West Irrigation Act (1894). LAC, RG 89, vol. 605, file 1514, memorandum “Re Jurisdiction, Bow River Licenses,” March 2, 1944 [unsigned but initialed by J. M. W(ardle) of the Water Power Branch].

7 LAC, RG 10, vol. 3686, file 13119-2, 3, 4, C10120, memorandum July 14, 1903; H. E. Sibbald to Indian Commissioner, August 17, 1903; Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs to Frank Oliver, August 31, 1903; Secretary of the Calgary Board of Trade to Department of the Interior, October 10, 1903; Guardian Insurance Company to Department of Indian Affairs, September 30, 1904; Johnson and Johnson, Barristers on behalf of E. R. Wood, to Department of Indian Affairs, September 15, 1905.

8 The following correspondence recapitulates the matter: LAC, RG 85, vol. 737, file 1436-3-5 (1), J. B. Challies to Mr. Young, copy to Wm Cory, Deputy Minister, January 4, 1907.

9 LAC, RG 10, vol. 3686, file 13119-2, 3, 4, C10120, Frank Pedley, Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, to Rev. John McDougall, May 23, 1906; McDougall to Pedley, May 25, 1906; Pedley to McDougall, June 6, 1906 and June 12, 1906; McDougall to Pedley, June 6, 1906, reporting the asking price. The minister, Frank Oliver, replied to McDougall himself on July 24, 1906, stating the price to be “unjustified by the value of the power in its undeveloped state.”

10 LAC, RG 85, vol. 737, file 1436-3-5 (1), W. M. Alexander and W. J. Budd to the Minister of the Interior, December 21, 1906; C. H. Mitchell to Secretary, Department of the Interior, December 21, 1906; J. B. Challies to Mr. Young, copy to Mr. Cory (DM), January 4, 1907. The creation of a provincial government in 1905 caused this confusion: the bureaucrats thought the land under the river was “under the jurisdiction of the local government” (i.e., the province). Authority to grant diversion or waterpower permits, however, rested with the Department of the Interior, but the authorities were not certain and added a phrase about possible jurisdiction by “local government if rights have been passed on to the province.” LAC, RG 85, vol. 737, file 1436-3-5 (1), Lands and Timber Branch to Deputy Minister Cory, January 30, 1907.

11 LAC, RG 85, vol. 737, file 1436-3-5 (1), Charles Mitchell (engineer for Alexander and Budd) to Department of the Interior, February 26, 1907; R. E. Secretary, Department of the Interior to J. B. Challies, March 1, 1907.

12 LAC, RG 85, vol. 737, file 1436-3-5 (1), Surrender Agreement with T. I. Fleetham, Agent; Moses Bearspaw, Chief; Peter Wesley, Chief; Jonas Two Young Man, Chief; and James Swampy, Amos Big Stony, John Mark, Hector Crawler, George McLean, Councillors, March 22, 1907; Draft Lease, April 1, 1907. See also GA, CPC, M1546, vol. 4, file 11, material relating to the development of the Horseshoe Falls, and vol. 4, file 12, Quit Claim, Stoney Indians, Morley, 1907, sale of 1,000 acres adjacent to Horseshoe Falls.

13 This position was adopted despite the fact that the office of superintendent general was usually, though not always, occupied by the minister of the interior.

14 LAC, RG 85, vol. 737, file 1436-3-5 (1), J. B. Challies to R. E. Young, memorandum, March 13, 1909; J. D. McLean, Secretary, Department of Indian Affairs, to R. E. Young, April 6, 1909; Water Power Regulations under the Dominion Lands Act, passed by order-in-council, June 2, 1909. Probably as a result of these negotiations and to ensure greater certainty and clarity, the federal government amended section 35 of the Dominion Lands Act in 1908 to assert its rights to control and license the use of water for power purposes, establish a regulatory framework, and create the Water Power Branch in the Department of the Interior to identify locations, conduct hydrographic surveys, issue licences, and regulate the construction and operation of hydroelectric works. The minister of the interior was specifically granted authority to make regulations governing “the diversion, taking or use of water for power purposes” and “for fixing the fees … to be paid for the use of water for power purposes, and the rates to be charged for power or energy derived therefrom.” The amendments to the Dominion Lands Act and the regulations respecting water allocation and development are printed in Leo G. Denis and Arthur V. White, Water-Powers of Canada (Ottawa: Commission of Conservation, 1911), 275ff, and again in Leo G. Denis and J. B. Challies, Water-Power Resources of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (Ottawa: Commission of Conservation, 1916), 302ff. This latter volume contains detailed hydrographical analysis of the Bow River and its flow conducted by J. B. Challies, superintendent of the Water Power Branch (178–226). The records of the Water Power Branch are to be found in LAC, RG 89.

15 LAC, Kerry and Chace Papers, Report No. 839 on Hydro-Electric Development on Bow River Horseshoe Falls near Calgary, Alberta, November 2, 1907, by C. B. Smith; RG 85, vol. 737, Garnet P. Grant to Secretary, Department of Interior, August 30, 1907.

16 GA, CPC, box 4, file 11, Agreement between Calgary Power and Transmission and Western Canada Cement and Coal Company, May 17, 1909; Agreement of Smith and Royal Securities, October 4, 1909.

17 On Aitken’s early career in Canada, see C. Armstrong and H. V. Nelles, Southern Exposure: Canadian Promoters in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1896–1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), chs. 6 and 7, and Greg Marchildon, Profits and Politics: Beaverbrook and the Gilded Age of Canadian Finance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996). A.J.P. Taylor skips over this aspect of Aitken’s career in his biography Beaverbrook (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972).

18 HLRO, Lord Beaverbrook Papers, series A, vol. 19, W. M. Aitken to R.T.D. Aitken, September 3, 1908; R.T.D. Aitken to W. M. Aitken, September 8, 1908. Correspondence regarding the abortive attempt to secure the Calgary street railway franchise can be found in series A, vol. 26.

19 HLRO, series G, vol. 18, W. M. Aitken to R.T.D. Aitken, April 23, 1909; R.T.D. Aitken to W. M. Aitken, April 28, 1909.

20 HLRO, Lord Beaverbrook Papers, series A, vol. 42, E. R. Wood to G. A. Morrow, September 29, 1909, E. R. Wood to W. J. Campbell, September 29, 1909, E. R. Wood to J. W. Mitchell, September 30, 1909; series A, vol. 65, W. M. Aitken to R. B. Bennett, October 6, 1909; GA, CPC, Minutebook No. 1, January 4, 1910.

21 HLRO, Lord Beaverbrook Papers, series A, vol. 49, C. C. Giles to W. M. Aitken, April 11, 1910.

22 LAC, Kerry and Chace Papers, vol. 14, Report No. 839, November 2, 1907.

23 GA, CPC, box 4, file 17, report to W. M. Aitken on Calgary Power Development by Western Canada Power Company, Stave Falls, Rusking, BC, December 7, 1909. Aitken was also investigating the promotion of Western Canada Power.

24 LAC, Kerry and Chace, vol. 14, Report No. 838 on Construction of Hydro-Electric Power Plant at Horseshoe Falls on the Bow River, 50 Miles West of Calgary, Alberta, n.d. [1910?]; GA, CPC, MB, December 23, 1910, May 2, 1911.

25 LAC, Kerry and Chace, vol. 14, Report No. 839, November 2, 1907; RG 85, vol. 734, Arthur L. Ford to J. T. Johnston, March 10, 1921.

26 Hawkins provides abundant detail on this negotiation in Electrifying Calgary, 147–61. Aitken grudgingly congratulated Bennett on his achievement, which, Bennett admitted, “has been one of the most annoying and difficult matters I have dealt with since I came here.”

27 Quoted in Hawkins, Electrifying Calgary, 95.

28 Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Beaverbrook: My Early Life (Fredericton, NB: Brunswick Press, 1965), 128.

29 This is the conclusion of Marchildon, who has made the closest study of the available documentation on the Canada Cement merger. Marchildon, Profits and Politics, 143–80. The Mount Royal Club incident is reported on p. 152.

30 In 1918, Aitken sold his interest in Calgary Power and the Montreal Engineering Company to his old partner, I. W. Killam, and the Montreal financier, Ward Pitman.

CHAPTER 3: DOUBLING DOWN

1 LAC, RG 85, 737, engineering report of C. H. Mitchell on Kananaskis Falls, September 8, 1911.

2 LAC, RG 85, 737, application of the Calgary Power Company to develop Kananaskis Falls, January 12, 1910; Fred C. Clarke to Secretary, Department of Interior, April 6, 1910, May 3, 1910, August 17, 1910; memorandum from J. B. Challies to R. E. Young, May 26, 1910; Carl Giles to Secretary, Department of Interior, October 6, 1910.

3 On Macphail and his application, see C. Armstrong and H. V. Nelles, “Competition vs. Convenience: Federal Administration of Bow River Waterpowers, 1906–1913,” in The Canadian West, ed. Henry Klassen (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1977), 170–76. See also Ian Robertson, Sir Andrew Macphail: The Life and Legacy of a Canadian Man of Letters (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008).

4 LAC, RG 85, 737, Andrew Haydon to W. W. Cory, January 19, 1911; Haydon to Secretary, Department of Interior, August 8, 1911; John B. McRae to Macphail, March 13, 1911.

5 LAC, RG 85, 737, engineering report of C. H. Mitchell on Kananaskis Falls, September 8, 1911.

6 LAC, RG 85, 737, memorandum from J. B. Challies to R. E. Young, September 28, 1911; Final Agreement re: Kananaskis Falls, October 14, 1912.

7 GA, CPC, MB, August 3, 1911; HLRO, Lord Beaverbrook Papers, series A, box 65, R. B. Bennett to Aitken, February 16, 1912, and September 19, 1912.

8 LAC, RG 85, 737, file 1436-3-5, J. B. Challies to R. E. Young, December 29, 1910; E. F. Drake to J. B. Challies, January 18, 1911; House of Commons, Debates, April 28, May 9 and 17, 1911, cols. 8084–6, 8606–41, 8650–74, 9345–7; Statutes of Canada, 1911, 1–2 Geo V, ch. 10, s. 17.

9 LAC, RG 10, 8057, R. E. Young to Frank Pedley, February 7, 1911.

10 See Canada, House of Commons, Debates, April 10 and 26, May 4, 1911, cols. 7019–21, 7825–69, 8403–8 (Oliver’s speech is at 7825–6); Statutes of Canada, 1911, 1–2 Geo V, ch. 14, s. 46.

11 Canada, Sessional Papers, 1913, No. 25, Department of the Interior, Annual Report, 1912, Report No. 35, report of Water Power Branch, pp. 210–20; RG 85, 737, memorandum from Challies to W. W. Cory, April 16, 1912.

12 LAC, RG 85, 737, K. M. Perry, Calgary Power, to Challies, November 20, 1912; Challies to Perry, November 22, 1912; RG 10, 8507, L. Pereira to McLean, November 22, 1912; McLean to Pereira, November 23, 1912; Challies to Perry, November 25, 1912; J. W. Waddy to McLean, December 14, 1912.

13 LAC, RG 10, 8057, McLean to Waddy, December 24, 1912, January 24, 1913; Waddy to McLean, January 11, 1913, April 18, 1913; RG 85, 737, memorandum for file by J. B. Challies, April 16, 1913.

14 LAC, RG 10, 8507, Waddy to McLean, May 1, 1913 (quoted); Bennett to McLean, May 28, 1913; Waddy to Constable A. J. Barber, June 30, 1913; Inspector G. S. Worsley to Superintendent R. B. Deane, July 6, 1913; Crime Report of Constable Barber, July 7, 1913. Worsley thought that local storekeepers were urging the Indians not to give up hopes of benefitting from a larger cash payment. For police response to the summer of 1913 discontents on the Nakoda Reserve, see also William M. Baker, ed., Pioneer Policing in Southern Alberta (Calgary: Alberta Records Publication Board, 1993), 219. We owe this reference to Don Smith.

15 LAC, RG 10, 8057, memorandum from J. B. Challies to W. W. Cory, July 10, 1913.

16 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Campbell to McLean, July 8, 1913.

17 LAC, RG 10, 8057, H. A. Moore to McLean, August 7, 1913; Campbell to McLean, August 29, 1913.

18 LAC, RG 10, 8057, McLean to H. A. Moore, September 10, 1913; Moore to McLean, October 4, 1913.

19 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Moore to McLean, October 3, 1913. When the deputy minister of justice advised that the company lacked the expropriation powers that it claimed to have, that suggestion was dropped. See LAC, RG 10, 8057, W. S. Edwards to McLean, October 16, 1913; D. C. Scott to Moore, October 16, 1913.

20 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Moore to Waddy, October 25, 1913; McLean to Waddy, November 10, 1913.

21 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Scott to Moore, November 18, 1913; Moore to Scott, December 4, 1913; S. Bray to Scott, December 5, 1913 (quoted). GA, CPC, box 13, file 172, Agreement between Calgary Power and City of Calgary, December 1, 1913. Under the agreement, the price of power over 10,000 hp would fall to twenty dollars.

22 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Waddy to McLean, December 16, 1913, January 9, 1914 ; McLean to Waddy, December 17, 1913; W. A. Thompson to McLean, December 16 and 29, 1913.

23 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Moore to McLean, February 14, 1914; Waddy to McLean, February 21, 1914, enclosing clipping from Calgary News-Telegram, February 20, 1914; Campbell to Scott, March 25, 1914.

24 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Campbell to Scott, May 1 and 6, 1914.

25 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Scott to Campbell, May 7, 1914; Campbell to Scott, May 7, 1914.

26 LAC, RG 85, 737, [J. B. Challies] to D. C. Scott, May 12, 1914.

27 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Scott to James Muir, April 27, 1914.

28 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Scott to V. M. Drury, May 23, 1914, enclosing memorandum regarding settlement of differences between the Stoney Indians and the Calgary Power Company. Geo. Maclean, Jonas Benjamin, and Dan Wildman for the Indians; V. M. Drury for the Power Company; and witnesses Duncan C. Scott and J. W. Waddy, Ottawa, May 20, 1914.

29 LAC, RG 10, 8057, memorandum from Scott, May 23, 1914; Drury to Scott, May 30, 1914.

30 LAC, RG 10, 8057, memorandum from Scott to F. W. Paget, May 23, 1914; Drury to Scott, May 30, 1914; J. D. McLean to Drury, September 7, 1915; S. B. Hammond to Indian Affairs, September 11, 1915.

31 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Scott to Calgary Power, November 2, 1915; E. W. Robinson to Scott, November 30, 1915.

32 LAC, RG 10, 8057, Scott to Calgary Power, October 12, 1916; S. B. Hammond to Scott, October 17, 1916; Hammond to Indian Affairs, August 20, 1917, October 3, 1917; memorandum from F. W. Paget re: amounts owing on Kananaskis, August 27, 1917.

33 Our analysis of the waterpower story on the Nakoda Reserve largely corresponds with the conclusion arrived at by Kenichi Matsui in Native Peoples and Water Rights: Irrigation, Dams and the Law in Western Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009): “Under these circumstances, what the Stoney Nakoda people achieved was remarkable, especially in a matter related to Native water rights. Today, experts in Aboriginal rights tend to emphasize court decisions and statutes, but the history of Stoney Nakoda water rights highlights the need to consider the political, social and economic contexts of the hydroelectric developments” (139). Matsui’s book appeared at about the same time as our The River Returns, which contained our short account of the story. He arrived at his interpretation apparently without the benefit of consulting the Waterpower Branch records or our article on the subject: “Competition vs. Convenience: Federal Administration of Bow River Waterpowers, 1906–1913,” in The Canadian West, ed. Henry Klassen (Calgary: University of Calgary Com-Print, 1977).

CHAPTER 4: DOWNSTREAM BENEFITS

1 Two projects, both joint enterprises of Calgary Power and the Alberta government, were built on the upper tributaries of the North Saskatchewan River in the 1960s. Big Bend on the Brazeau River and Bighorn on the upper mainstem of the North Saskatchewan were constructed at sites that allowed for extensive storage capacity behind the dams, which effectively evened out streamflow to the generators.

2 HLRO, Lord Beaverbrook Papers, series A, vol. 19, W. M. Aitken to R.T.D. Aitken, September 3, 1908, R.T.D. Aitken to W. M. Aitken, September 8, 1908.

3 GA, CPC, box 4, file 17, report to W. M. Aitken on Calgary Power Development, December 7, 1909.

4 M. C. Hendry, Bow River Power and Storage Investigations, 1914, Water Resources Paper No. 2, Glenbow Library and Canada, Sessional Papers, Department of the Interior Annual Report, Sessional Paper No. 25e, 1914. This paper informs J. B. Challies’s two chapters on the Bow River in L. G. Denis and J. B. Challies, Water-Power Resources of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (Toronto: Commission of Conservation, 1916).

5 Denis and Challies, Water-Power Resources of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 207.

6 Ibid., 194–95.

7 HLRO, Lord Beaverbrook Papers, series A, box 65, R. B. Bennett to Sir Max Aitken, February 16, 1912.

8 Hendry, Bow River Water Power and Storage Investigations, 1914.

9 Denis and Challies, Water-Power Resources of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 196–205.

10 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, P. M. Sauder to R. H. Campbell, February 6, 1911; A. B. Macdonald to Campbell, February 20, 1911.

11 For a local history of Lake Minnewanka and its community, illustrated with many charming photographs, see R. W. Sanford, Lake Minnewanka: The Spirit of the Waters (Banff: Lake Minnewanka Boat Tours, 1999).

12 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, John Standly to R. H. Campbell, May 15, 1911; Campbell to Standly, May 22, 1911.

13 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, vol. 1, Harkin to W. W. Cory, December 24, 1912; memorandum from M. C. Hendry to J. B. Challies, December 14, 1912; memorandum from Challies to Harkin, March 26, 1913; memorandum from Harkin to Challies, April 3, 1913.

14 LAC, Harkin Papers, memorandum, March 20, 1914.

15 The beginning point for critical analysis is R. C. Brown, “The Doctrine of Usefulness: Natural Resources and National Park Policy in Canada, 1887–1914,” in The Canadian National Parks: Today and Tomorrow, vol. 1, ed. J. G. Nelson and R. C. Scace (Calgary: National and Provincial Parks Association and University of Calgary, 1969), 94–110. Leslie Bella subsequently took the extreme point of view that parks policy always placed revenue generation above other goals in Parks for Profit (Montreal: Harvester House, 1986). Alan MacEachern reasserted the balance between use and preservation in Natural Selections: National Parks in Atlantic Canada, 1935–1970 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001). E. J. Hart’s recent magisterial biography, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2011), also emphasizes the complicated balancing act required to reconcile these two objectives; Hart focuses on Harkin’s inspired leadership in difficult times.

16 W. E. Hawkins, Electrifying Calgary: A Century of Public and Private Power (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987), 94–97, 156–57.

17 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, December 24, 1912.

18 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-8, memorandum from J. B. Challies to Harkin, March 26, 1913; memorandum from Harkin to Challies, April 3, 1913.

19 Calculated from the streamflow data reported in Denis and Challies, Water-Power Resources of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, 179–81.

20 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, “Montreal Engineering Company, Limited, Proposed Cascade Development,” August 28, 1922; file R39-8, memorandum from J. B. Harkin to W. W. Cory, May 22, 1926.

21 Sandford, Lake Minnewanka. See p. 23 for a photograph.

22 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from M. C. Hendry to J. B. Challies, December 3, 1914; memorandum from J. T. Johnston to Challies, December 7, 1914; W. W. Cory to W. A. Found, December 30, 1914; G. F. Desbarats to Cory, January 11, 1915; memorandum from Cory to Challies, January 20, 1915.

23 LAC, RG 85, 734, memorandum re: “The Power Situation in Calgary,” March 1920. The Calgary Water Power Company continued to turn out small amounts of thermal power that met about 10 per cent of local demand. The city also considered purchasing this undertaking, but its owners wanted to include its sawmill and timber limits in the sale, at which the municipal authorities balked.

24 On the Stairs-Aitken-Killam relationship, see C. Armstrong and H. V. Nelles, Southern Exposure: Canadian Promoters in Latin America and the Caribbean, 1896–1930 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 107–47. On the sale of Royal Securities to Killam and Pitfield, see also A.J.P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1972), 79; Greg Marchildon, Profits and Politics: Beaverbrook and the Gilded Age of Canadian Finance (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 236; and James D. Frost, Merchant Princes: Halifax’s First Family of Finance, Ships and Steel (Toronto: Lorimer, 2003), 278.

25 LAC, RG 85, 734, memorandum re: “The Power Situation in Calgary,” March 1920; A. L. Ford to J. T. Johnston, March 10, 1921; RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from J. T. Johnston to F.H.H. Williamson, March 3, 1921.

26 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Norman Marr to J. B. Challies, March 3, 1921; memorandum from Challies to J. B. Harkin, February 23, 1921.

27 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Challies to Harkin, March 3, 1921.

28 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, September 23, 1930. On Harkin’s changing attitude toward power development see Hart, J. B. Harkin, 241–47. Hart also covers this Minnewanka episode (259–64).

29 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Harkin to W. A. Found, March 5, 1921; R. S. Stronach to Harkin, March 5, 1921; memorandum from Harkin to Challies, March 9, 1921; memorandum from Challies to Harkin, March 14, 1921.

30 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Montreal Engineering Company to Minister of the Interior, July 31, 1922.

31 LAC, RG 84, file R39-5, “Montreal Engineering Company Limited, Proposed Cascade Development,” August 28, 1922.

32 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Montreal Engineering Company to Minister of the Interior, July 31, 1922.

33 LAC, RG 85, 734, “Memorandum Re: Cascade Water Power Project,” G. A. Gaherty, September 15, 1922.

34 The other branches reporting to Deputy Minister W. W. Cory were Parks, Dominion Lands, Timber and Grazing, Irrigation, Forestry, Yukon, Surveys, Immigration, and Dominion Astronomer. The interior minister was also responsible for Indian affairs.

35 LAC, RG 84, file U321, memorandum from H. W. Grunsky to Challies, February 12, 1919.

36 These consultations are documented in LAC, RG 85, file R-1430-1, and the first draft of the new regulations is in RG 84, file U321, Department of the Interior-Canada, Dominion Water-Power Branch, Proposed New Dominion Water-Power Regulations with Explanation (Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1916): confidential, not released for publication.

37 LAC, RG 85, file R-1430-1, J. B. Challies to W. W. Cory, February 14, 1919; Statutes of Canada, 1919, 9–10 Geo V, ch. 19.

38 LAC, RG 84, file U321, memorandum from J. B. Harkin to J. B. Challies, May 16, 1919; memorandum to Harkin, December 30, 1921. The proclamation was Order-in-Council, P.C. 4034, October 31, 1921.

39 LAC, RG 85, vol. 734, J. T. Johnston to W. W. Cory, August 3, 1922; RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from Johnston to Cory, August 8, 1923.

40 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Harkin to R. S. Stronach, January 13, 1922.

41 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Harkin to J. B. Challies, February 13, 1922. The determination of Harkin and Stronach (the superintendent of Rocky Mountains National Park) to oppose the company was redoubled by a wrangle in February and March of 1922, when the release of water from Lake Minnewanka caused a tremendous ice buildup on the Cascade that threatened to carry away the highway bridge. The company and its allies in the Water Power Branch refused to accept responsibility and insisted that the whole problem was caused by unusual weather conditions, although Stronach pointed out that such problems had never been experienced until Lake Minnewanka had been used for water storage. See RG 84, file B39-5, for the correspondence on this subject during February and March, 1922, and file R39-5, Stronach to F. J. Robertson, March 24, 1922.

42 LAC, RG 94, file B39-5, R. S. Stronach to F.H.H. Williamson, August 9, 1922; J. M. Wardle to Harkin, August 28, 1922, marked “Confidential.”

43 LAC, RG 84, file R39-5, memorandum from J. M. Wardle, August 18, 1922; file B39-5, Banff Citizens Council to Harkin, September 12, 1922.

44 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, October 7, 1922; file R39-5, clipping from Calgary Morning Albertan, January 29, 1923.

45 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Harkin to V. M. Drury, January 23, 1922.

46 LAC, RG 84, file B39-9, Harkin to Drury, April 20, 1923; file B39-5, Harkin to W. W. Cory, October 7, 1922. Hart, in J. B. Harkin, also has difficulty squaring this action with Harkin’s rhetoric (322–23).

47 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from J. T. Johnston to J. B. Challies, November 9, 1922: “From the standpoint of conservation of water power in southern Alberta, I am strongly of the opinion that the larger scheme of development proposed for the Cascade River should be disproved, both from the engineering and economic aspects, before the smaller scheme of the Parks Branch is proceeded with, and I hope that there will be no departmental commitment thereto until my views have been received and considered.”

48 LAC, RG 84, file B39-9, memorandum re: purchase of power for Banff from Calgary Power Company, March 8, 1923.

49 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, J. B. Harkin to V. M. Drury, January 23, 1923; RG 85, vol. 734, Mitchell to Stewart, February 21, 1922; Drury to Mitchell, March 7, 1922.

50 LAC, RG 85, vol. 734, memorandum from R. A. Gibson to J. B. Challies, March 15, 1923; RG 84, file B39-5, V. M. Drury to Minister of the Interior, April 12, 1923.

51 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum to W. W. Cory, October 13, 1922.

52 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from W. W. Cory to J. B. Challies, November 23, 1922.

53 LAC, RG 85, vol. 733, memorandum from J. T. Johnston to J. B. Challies, March 16, 1923.

CHAPTER 5: SELLING SCENERY

1 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from M. C. Hendry to J. B. Challies, December 14, 1912; RG 85, 737, K. H. Smith to J. B. Challies, October 2, 1912. M. C. Hendry made an extensive study of the storage capabilities in Water Resources Paper No. 2 (Ottawa: Department of the Interior, 1914). Leo G. Denis and J. B. Challies provided a lengthy summary of this work in chapter 11 of Water-Power Resources of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (Ottawa: Commission of Conservation, 1916), 193–226. The detailed map series accompanying this analysis of upriver storage can be found in the Glenbow Library under the call number G3502 B785N33 1912 C212 and following. The Spray Lakes surveys can be found at G3502 B785N33 svar 19, sheets D to I.

2 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from J. T. Johnston to J. B. Harkin, October 29, 1920; memorandum from J. B. Challies to Harkin, November 12, 1920. This diversion project may have been inspired by a similar venture being simultaneously undertaken by Canadian financiers and engineers for Brazilian Traction. In Brazil, above the port of Santos, engineers reversed the flow of several rivers, creating a huge reservoir on the Serra do Mar plateau. This impounded water was thus reversed and diverted over the coastal escarpment to the Cubatão power station more than seven hundred metres below. In this dramatic fall, the water would be made to generate 20,000 hp on a year-round basis for the power-hungry city of São Paulo. The project, financed and managed by Canadians in Montreal and employing Canadian engineers, would have been well known in Montreal engineering circles and certainly within the Montreal Engineering Company. See Duncan McDowall, The Light: Brazilian Traction, Light, and Power Company Limited, 1899–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 250–61. Calgary Power outlined the technical aspects of the Spray Lakes project in The Canadian Engineer 48, no. 11 (1925), 316.

3 James D. Frost, Merchant Princes: Halifax’s First Family of Finance, Ships and Steel (Toronto: Lorimer, 2003), 196, 239, 265, 278–81; Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13, John Fitzwilliam Stairs, http://www.biographi.ca; Canadian Who’s Who, 1961–63, vol. 9 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963), 390.

4 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Montreal Engineering Company to the Minister of the Interior, July 31, 1922; file R39-5, “Montreal Engineering Company, Proposed Cascade Development,” August 28, 1922.

5 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Montreal Engineering Company (per Gaherty) to Stewart, July 31, 1922.

6 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from J. M. Wardle, February 3, 1923.

7 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum to W. W. Cory, October 13, 1922. Changes to parks regulation first excluded quartz mining in 1916, and during the 1920s, it became clear that coal mining would be soon be prohibited – and it was, under the 1930 Parks Act revision. Bankhead, a coal-mining community within Rocky Mountains National Park, under the threat of exclusion, closed down in 1922. Many of the buildings were removed for use in the town of Banff. The coal mine at Anthracite continued to operate but eventually shut down as well. See Ben Gadd, Bankhead: The Twenty-Year Town (Banff: Friends of Banff National Park, 1989).

8 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, V. M. Drury to Charles Stewart, April 12, 1923; memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, October 7, 1922; April 12, 1923.

9 LAC, RG 85, vol. 733, memorandum from J. T. Johnston to J. B. Challies, March 16, 1923, from which the quotations that follow are taken.

10 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Mayor G. H. Webster to Charles Stewart, March 29, 1923; D. E. Black, president, Board of Trade, to Stewart, March 29, 1923.

11 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Drury to Stewart, May 17, 1923.

12 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Greenfield to Stewart, April 17, 1923; Stewart to Greenfield, May 3, 1923.

13 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, record of interview with Mayor Webster, June 27, 1923; Greenfield to Stewart, August 24, 1923.

14 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, Greenfield to Sir Adam Beck, December 5, 1923.

15 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, T. B. Moffatt to Stewart, March 27, 1923. In her work on these events, PearlAnn Reichwein focuses on the role of the Alpine Club of Canada in the opposition to the Spray Lakes development and its role in the formation of the Canadian National Parks Association but Reichwein did not have direct access to the Parks and Water Power Branch records. PearlAnn Reichwein, “Beyond the Visionary Mountains: The Alpine Club of Canada and the Canadian Park Idea, 1909 to 1969” (PhD dissertation, Carleton University, 1996), and “‘Hands Off Our National Parks’: The Alpine Club of Canada and Hydro-Development Controversies in the Canadian Rockies, 1922–1930,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 6, no. 1 (1995): 129–55. E. J. Hart deals with the Spray Lakes episode in J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2011). In a chapter entitled “Hands Off Our National Parks,” Hart places the Banff controversy in the broader context of economic pressure on park lands (241–70). For a condensed account, see also Leslie Bella, Parks for Profit (Montreal: Harvester House, 1986), 50–58.

16 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, J. B. Harkin to A. B. MacKay, March 28, 1913 (quoted below). Harkin was careful to protect himself with his bureaucratic superiors, explaining to the deputy minister that he intended only to give “friends of the parks some specific information which will help them understand the situation from the parks’ standpoint.” Memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, March 28, 1923. E. J. Hart, in J. B. Harkin (262–65), expands upon Harkin’s hardening position against hydroelectric development in this particular case.

17 See LAC, RG 84, file 39-8, which includes letters from the Banff Citizens’ Association (April 2, 1923), the Brandon Rotary Club (June 12, 1923), the Brandon Canadian Club (June 13, 1923), the Natural History Society of Manitoba (June 13, 1923), and the Edmonton branch of the Alpine Club of Canada (June 14, 1923); see also PAA, Attorney General’s Papers, box 7, file 535, clipping of editorial from Ottawa Journal, June 11, 1923.

18 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Arthur O. Wheeler to William Pearce, May 24, 1923. For a discussion of Wheeler’s prickly, obstinate, autocratic temperament, see Bella, Parks for Profit, 40–46, and Hart, J. B. Harkin, 266–68. In “Beyond the Visionary Mountains” (207–20), PearlAnn Reichwein gives an account of the wrangle.

19 LAC, RG 84, reel T12877, series A-2-a, vol. 102, file U36-1, part 2, Wheeler to Harkin, March 26, May 6 and 12, 1921; Harkin to Wheeler, April 13, May 17 and 26, 1921. Banff Superintendent R. S. Stronach had to come up with already scarce funds and suggested concealing the grant under the line item “Clearing Hay Meadows,” but Harkin instructed him simply to use some of the money allotted for constructing trails in the park to pay Wheeler. LAC, RG 84, reel T12877, series A-2-a, vol. 102, file U36-1, part 2, Stronach to Harkin, June 6, 1921; Harkin to Stronach, June 29, 1921.

20 LAC, RG 84, reel T12877, series A-2-a, vol. 102, file U36-1, part 2, clipping from Calgary Daily Herald, June 30, 1921; Wheeler to Harkin, September 26, October 19 (quoted), 1921.

21 LAC, RG 84, reel T12877, series A-2-a, vol. 102, file U36-1, part 2, Wheeler to Harkin, May 12, 1921; Harkin to Wheeler, November 25, 1921; letters to the minister, Sir James Lougheed, included C. E. Fortier, Winnipeg, December 6, 1921, and Andrew J. Gilmour, New York, December 7, 1921; ACC circular, January 1, 1922 (quoted), which produced many more letters to the Interior Department, and, on February 20, 1922, Professor N. W. Tyler of MIT (who was also the secretary of the National Association of University Professors) sent Wheeler a list of “College Men” from universities across the United States and a draft letter by Tyler for which he hoped to secure signatories.

22 LAC, RG 84, reel T12877, series A-2-a, vol. 102, file U36-1, part 2, memoranda from J. M. Wardle to Deputy Minister W. W. Cory, January 3, March 23, 1922, memorandum from Harkin to Cory, February 14, 1922; Wheeler to Cory, February 4,1922; Harkin to Wheeler, February 18 and 28, and May 16, 1922; Cory to Wheeler, March 8, 1922, Wheeler to R. A. Gibson, March 8, 1922; Wheeler to Harkin, April 3, May 25, 1922. Leslie Bella, in Parks for Profit (41–43), discusses this incident, stressing Wheeler’s volatile character. In J. B. Harkin (254–57), E. J. Hart treats Wheeler as a difficult ally.

23 LAC, RG 84, reel T12877, vol. 102, file U36-1, part 3, Wheeler to Harkin, December 14, 1923; Harkin to Wheeler, December 28, 1923, April 24, 1924. In the end, the minister approved a grant of only $800.

24 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, minutes of the first meeting of the National Parks Association of Canada, August 2, 1923. The executive consisted of the following:

    President: Lt.-Col. W. W. Foster, Vancouver

    Vice-presidents: Charles Hanbury-Williams, Aylmer, Quebec

    A. A. McCoubrey, Winnipeg

    Treasurer: Major J.W.S. Walker, Calgary

    Executive secretary: Andrew S. Sibbald, Saskatoon

    Arthur O. Wheeler, Calgary

    Executive committee members: Dr. W.J.A. Hickson, McGill University; Professor R. B. Thomson, University of Toronto; F. M. Black, MPP, Winnipeg; Mrs. W. C. McKillican, Brandon; H. E. Sampson, Regina; John Blue, Edmonton; Mrs. J. W. Henshaw, Vancouver; Col. F. C. Bell, Vancouver; and Major F. V. Longstaff, Victoria.

    See letterhead of open letter from Wheeler to Premier Herbert Greenfield, January 21, 1924 (PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467), which quotes Harkin.

25 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, A. S. Sibbald to Stewart, August 14, 1923.

26 These letters may be found in LAC, RG 84, files B39-8 and R39-8. Somebody, probably A. S. Sibbald, organized a big push in Saskatoon to attack the Spray scheme, ultimately using a mimeographed petition form.

27 See LAC, RG 84, file R39-8, memorandum re: proposed Spray Lakes project, December 4, 1926, “List of Organizations protesting against the above project,” which listed the following: Canadian National Parks Association (representing over 150,000 people); Banff Citizens’ Council; Alpine Clubs of Vancouver Island, Vancouver, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary, and Edmonton; Calgary Anglers Association; Calgary Automobile Club; Canadian Clubs of Winnipeg and Brandon; Women’s Canadian Clubs of Winnipeg and Brandon; Brandon Board of Trade and Civics; Brandon Rotary Club; Natural History Society of Manitoba; Royal Society of Canada, Saskatoon Motor Club; Toronto Field Naturalists Club; Western Canada Coal Operators Association; Drumheller Board of Trade; Manitoba Motor League; Kiwanis Clubs of Brandon and Victoria; Young Women’s Auxiliary, St. Paul’s Church, Brandon; Brandon Local Council of Women; Manitoba Horticultural and Forestry Association; Alumni Association, Manitoba Agricultural College; Victoria Gyro Club; Natural History Society of BC; American Institute of Park Executives; Alberta Provincial Liberal Association; Vancouver Institute; Association of Chief Engineers, Calgary. Obviously, Mrs. W. C. McKillican of Brandon, who was on the board of the CNPA, helped engender many of these resolutions.

28 Susan E. Markham-Starr, “W.J.S. Walker and the Canadian National Parks Association: Protectors of Canadian Leisure Interests,” Leisure/Loisir 32 (2008): 649–80.

29 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Walker to R. S. Stronach, Superintendent, Rocky Mountains National Park, August 22, 1923. Stronach answered cautiously that he felt the local people already knew all they needed to about the project. See also GA, Western Coal Operators Association Records, box 17, file 110, Walker to R. M. Young, December 11, 1923.

30 GA, Western Canada Coal Operators Association Records, box 17, file 110, Young to Walker, January 5, 1924; Walker to Young, January 5, 1924.

31 GA, Western Canada Coal Operators Association Records, box 17, file 110, Walker to Young, April 22, 1924. See the list of opponents of the Spray scheme in note 27 above. Eventually, the association petitioned the premier of Alberta not to spend public funds on the development of the Spray Lakes or any other hydroelectric scheme before a full investigation of the possibility of generating thermal power from small coal had been completed. See GA, Western Canada Coal Operators Association Records, box 17, file 110, Resolution of the Association, December 21, 1926.

32 UAA, Pearce Papers, file 421.1, Pearce to R. B. Bennett, May 12, 1923; Pearce to the editor of the Herald, May 19, 1923; memorandum by Pearce, May 23, 1923; Pearce to the Minister of the Interior, June 7, 1923. Pearce’s intervention caused the CPR “some embarrassment” in Ottawa and the company asked him, once he had expressed his opinion, to “desist from further controversy.” Pearce to D. C. Coleman, CPR Vice President, June 25, 1923, quoting the instructions he had received. See also Bella, Parks for Profit, 48–51.

33 GA, CPC, box 13, file 172, agreement between CPC and the City of Calgary, August 6, 1923.

34 PAA, Premier’s Papers, box 43, Stewart to Greenfield, December 22, 1923.

35 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, April 10, 1924, 1259–60.

36 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, V. M. Drury to Herbert Greenfield, May 19, 1924; I. W. Killam to Greenfield, May 28, 1924.

37 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, Mayor G. H. Webster to Greenfield, August 7, 1924; memorandum of interview with Stewart, December 13, 1924; LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, report tabled in the Alberta legislature by Greenfield, April 8, 1925.

38 PAA, acc. 70.414, Alberta Sessional Papers, Sessional Paper No. 15, 1925, Report on the Development and Distribution of Hydro-Electric Power in the Province of Alberta by the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, 2 vols.

39 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, report to the Alberta legislature by Greenfield, April 8, 1925; PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, Greenfield to Director of Reclamation and Water Power, April 24, 1925.

40 See PAA, acc. 69.287, file 467, J. H. Hanna, secretary, Calgary Board of Trade, to Greenfield, January 30, 1925; Secretary, Calgary TLC, to Greenfield, May 5, 1925.

41 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, Hoadley to Greenfield, June 21, 1925; PAA, Premier’s Papers, box 42, Vernon Pearson and John Haddin to Public Works Minister Alex Ross, August 28, 1925.

42 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, June 26, 1925, col. 5008-11.

43 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, J. M. Wardle to J. B. Harkin, July 2, 1925.

44 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, George Hoadley to Greenfield, June 21, 1925; Greenfield to Charles Stewart, July 30, 1925.

45 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Stewart to Greenfield, August 19, 1925; Greenfield to Stewart, August 25, 1925; memorandum from J. B. Harkin to R. A. Gibson, August 29, 1925.

46 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, clipping from Calgary Daily Herald, December 11, 1925; LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Brownlee to Stewart, December 16, 1925; Stewart to Brownlee, December 29, 1925.

47 PAA, Attorney General’s Records, box 7, file S35, clippings from Calgary Albertan, June 16, 1923; January 24, 1924.

CHAPTER 6: POLITICAL LOGIC

1 On the 1925 election, see H. B. Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King, 1924–1932: The Lonely Heights (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963), 68–76.

2 J. A. Maxwell, Federal Subsidies to the Provincial Governments in Canada (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937), 152. In 1924, Alberta Premier Greenfield finally accepted the federal offer to return the resources without the subsidy, but King had done nothing to reach a final agreement. See Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King, 100–102.

3 Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King, 127–29.

4 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 467, Premier Greenfield to the Director of Reclamation and Water Power Branch, Ottawa, April 24, 1925: “There is a very strong sentiment in this province in favour of the development of the natural waterpower resources of the Province under public ownership or Government control, and the Government is now carrying on negotiations with the larger municipalities, with a view to determining in what way the Spray River power should be developed, having regard to the best interests of the Province.”

5 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 466, statement tabled in the Alberta legislature, March 10, 1926; Brownlee to Stewart, March 22, 1926; Brownlee to King, March 22, 1926; Brownlee to H. E. Spencer, March 22, 1926.

6 PAA, acc. 69.289, file 466, Killam to Brownlee, May 3, 1926, marked “Private and Confidential.”

7 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Webster to Stewart, March 25, 1926; R39-8, Calgary Board of Trade to Stewart, May 6, 1926.

8 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Stewart to Brownlee, March 25, 1926; memorandum from Harkin to R. A. Gibson, March 25, 1926.

9 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from Johnston to R. A. Gibson, March 31, 1926.

10 There are two very similar versions of this reply in LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, “Draft notes on the memorandum dated March 31, 1926 of Mr. J. T. Johnston to the Acting Deputy Minister of the Interior,” April 21, 1926, and the memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, May 22, 1926. Quotations that follow are from the latter.

11 PAA, acc. 69.287, file 466, Brownlee to Stewart, May 6, 1922; Stewart to Brownlee, June 5, 1926; NAC, RG 84, file R39-8, Stewart to J. H. Hanna, Secretary, Calgary Board of Trade, June 5, 1926.

12 For an account of these events see Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King, 130–57.

13 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 43, Killam to Brownlee, July 23, 1926.

14 LAC, RG 84, R 39-8, R. C. Marshall to Charles Stewart, 21 November 21, 1926, marked “Personal.”

15 LAC, RG 84, file R39-8, Brownlee to Stewart, November 29, 1926; circular from Arthur O. Wheeler, Executive Secretary, Canadian National Parks Association, November 29, 1926; Walker to Stewart, December 8, 1926, marked “Personal.”

16 LAC, RG 84, file R39-8, memorandum from J. B. Harkin to W. W. Cory, November 30, December 22, 1926; Stewart to Brownlee, November 29, December 2, 1926; Brownlee to Stewart, December 2, 1926; GA, City of Calgary Papers, box 241, file 1351, City Clerk to Mayor, December 23, 1926, transmitting council resolution to apply pressure to Stewart to get him to meet with Brownlee.

17 LAC, RG 84, file R39-8, memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, January 11, 1927.

18 LAC, RG 84, file R39-8, memorandum from Harkin to Cory, January 7, 1927.

19 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 43, Solicitor General to Brownlee, December 26, 1926.

20 NAC, RG 84, file R39-8, George Webster to Mayor Fred E. Osborne, Calgary, February 2, 1927.

21 LAC, RG 84, file R39-8, Resolution of the National Council of Women, n.d., and Henrietta L. Wilson and Lydia M. Parsons to Charles Stewart, January 19, 1927, which contains another resolution in similar terms: “Attention! Most Important! The Spray Lakes in Banff National Park,” circular from Arthur O. Wheeler, Executive Secretary, CNPA, February 15, 1927.

22 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 22, Bulletins Nos. 1–4, Alberta Power Research Association, January 3, 1927, January 17, 1927, Spring 1927, May 14, 1927.

23 NAC, RG 84, file R39-8, A. B. MacKay, Chairman, APRA, to Stewart, January 3, February 3, 1927; Stewart to MacKay, January 9, February 9, 1927.

24 NAC, RG 84, file R39-8, memorandum from J. T. Johnston to W. W. Cory, February 5, 1927, which also contains a copy of this pamphlet.

25 NAC, RG 84, file R39-8, memorandum from Johnston to W. W. Cory, February 5, 1927; memorandum from J. B. Harkin, February 9, 1927.

26 NAC, RG 84, file R39-8, memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, February 10, 1927; Harkin to R. A. Gibson, March 3, 1927. NAC, RG 84, file B39-8 is full of correspondence dated March–April 1927 from groups such as the Toronto Field Naturalists opposing the exploitation of national parks for commercial purposes; the correspondence was sparked by a circular from the Canadian National Parks Association with the heading “Attention! Most Important! The Spray Lakes in Banff National Park,” February 15, 1927.

27 NAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Brownlee to Stewart, March 2, 1927.

28 Although there was no announcement of Stewart’s decision, in September 1928, he advised an official of the Calgary Board of Trade that he had made up his mind eighteen months earlier to order the resurvey of the Spray Lakes to permit their removal from Rocky Mountains National Park. See NAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Stewart to T. M. Carlyle, September 6, 1928; NAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from J. B. Harkin to W. W. Cory, October 25, 1930.

29 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Walker to Stewart, October 24, 1927; Stewart to Walker, November 18, 1927.

30 The other question was a redrawing of the eastern boundary near Jasper where it crossed the Athabasca River.

31 These conditions are discussed in PAA, acc. 69.289, file 465, Brownlee to Stewart, February 14, 1928 and Stewart to Brownlee, February 28, 1928.

32 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Mayor F. E. Osborne to Stewart, June 7, 1928; memorandum from J. B. Harkin to W. W. Cory, July 6, 1928; Stewart to T. M. Carlyle, Calgary Board of Trade, September 6, 1928; Canada, House of Commons, Debates, June 6, 1928, 3854.

33 Neatby, William Lyon Mackenzie King, 294–95; PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, Stewart to Brownlee, March 11, 1929.

34 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, May 28, 1929, 2883–84.

35 E. J. Hart, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2011), 319–20.

36 LAC, R. B. Bennett Papers, series E, 48, CNPA, Bulletin, No. 8, “Support the Parks Bill,” January 1, 1930 (quoting Stewart) ; series F, 469, CNPA, Bulletin, No. 9, July 1, 1930; RG 84, file B39-5, clipping from Calgary Daily Herald, July 5, 1930. For the debate on the National Parks Act, see Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 1930, 2, May 9, 1930; Statutes of Canada, 1930, 20–21 Geo V, c. 33. A more detailed account of the legislation can be found in C. J. Taylor, “Legislating Nature: The National Parks Act of 1930,” in To See Ourselves/To Save Ourselves: Ecology and Culture in Canada, ed. Roland Lorimer et al., proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Association for Canadian Studies, University of Victoria, May 31–June 1, 1990 (Montreal: Association for Canadian Studies, 1991), 125–37. Hart provides a comprehensive account of the passage of the National Parks Act in J. B. Harkin, 381–86. In a masterful piece of political legerdemain the boundary changes actually added to the area of Banff National Park: the excisions on the south east for power development were more than compensated for by additions in the northwest.

CHAPTER 7: MINNEWANKA REDUX

1 LAC, RG 84, file B93-5, J. O. Apps to Charles Stewart, April 17, 1930.

2 The summer flow of the Spray averaged about 556 cfs, and the Alberta government and the Parks Branch agreed that it should be maintained at roughly that level. See LAC, RG 84, file B 39-8, memorandum re: Spray River flow, February 28, 1928.

3 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from J. M. Wardle, April 13, 1928; memorandum, April 13, 1928.

4 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Mayor F. E. Osborne to Stewart, June 7, 1928; memorandum from Harkin to W. W. Cory, July 6, 1928.

5 W. E. Hawkins, Electrifying Calgary, A Century of Public and Private Power (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987), 168–69; PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 43, Stewart to Brownlee, April 14, 1928; PAA, Premier’s Papers, 69.289, file 476, Calgary Power Plants, correspondence and documents relating to the Ghost/Radnor licence; GA, Calgary Council minutes, May 12, 1928, proposed agreement with Calgary Power; May 15, 1928, memorandum of agreement; GA, CPC, box 1, file 1, directors’ minutebook, July 31, 1928.

6 Killam had replaced Bennett as president in the spring of 1928 and then became chairman of the board. See GA, CPC, box 2, directors minutebook, December 16, 1927, March 12, October 18 and 25, 1928; box 3, shareholders minutebook, October 18, 1928.

7 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Mayor Fred Osborne to Stewart, August 9, 1928; T. M. Carlyle, Calgary Board of Trade, to Stewart, August 20, 1928.

8 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, resolution passed at the UFA convention, January 17–20, 1928.

9 See the collection of clippings on electricity supply from The U.F.A. in GA, Norman Smith Papers, file 188.

10 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, R. P. Baxter to V. M. Smith, Minister of Telephones, February 20, 1928, marked “Confidential”; memorandum, April 4, 1928.

11 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, R. P. Baxter to V. M. Smith, Minister of Railways and Telephones, August 1, 1928.

12 A similar attitude was expressed by H. R. Milner, local counsel for Midwest Utilities Limited, an American firm that had just begun to buy up small municipal electric systems in the southeastern part of Alberta. “We already have the reputation of being inclined to socialism,” warned Milner, predicting that private capitalists would refuse to invest in the province if public ownership were adopted. Nor would rates be lowered while scarce provincial resources were stretched thin due to the cost of electrical systems. See PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, Milner to Brownlee, September 20, 1928, marked “Confidential.”

13 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, Brownlee to C. A. Magrath, June 18, 1929.

14 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, R. G. Reid to Brownlee, August 15, 1929. In April 1929, Calgary city council established a five-man special committee to examine the power situation, which retained Acres.

15 See the collection of clippings on this subject from The U.F.A. in GA, Norman Smith Papers, file 188.

16 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, memorandum “Re Calgary Power and the Right of the Province to Expropriate,” from W. S. Gray to Brownlee, August 19, 1929.

17 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, clipping from Calgary Herald, December 20, 1929; Mayor F. E. Osborne and R. C. Thomas to Charles Stewart, December 21, 1929.

18 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Harkin to R. A. Gibson, December 23, 1929.

19 GA, Calgary Council Papers, Stewart to R. C. Thomas, December 23, 1929; resolution of TLC and CCU, January 2, 1930; LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Mayor Andrew Davison to Stewart, January 4, 1930; PAA, Premiers’ Papers, box 42, J. H. Hanna to John Brownlee, January 25, 1930.

20 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Harkin to R. A. Gibson, December 23, 1929; LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, R. B. Bennett Papers, J. H. Hanna to Bennett, February 20, 1930.

21 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Stewart to Mayor Andrew Davison, March 1, 1930; memorandum from W. W. Cory to Harkin, April 11, 1930; Harkin to R. A. Gibson, April 25, 1930; Harkin to Cory, June 5, 1930.

22 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, clipping from Calgary Herald, June 23, 1930; clipping from Calgary Herald, August 22, 1930; LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, R. B. Bennett Papers, series F, vol. 106, J. H. Hanna to Bennett, August 7, 1930, 70700; series F, vol. 469, W.J.S. Walker to CNPA members, August 18, 1930, 296314. See also RG 84, file B39-5, Resolution of the Alpine Club of Canada, August 13, 1930.

23 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Cory to Murphy, September 11, 1930; memorandum from J. T. Johnston to Cory, October 17, 1930; LAC, RG 85, file R-1436-3-3, E. J. Chambers, solicitor for Calgary Power, to Murphy, September 16, 1930.

24 Hart, J. B. Harkin, 287.

25 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Harkin to Cory, October 25, 1930.

26 LAC, R. B. Bennett Papers, series F, Murphy to Gaherty, February 23, 1931; Gaherty to Murphy, March 13, 1931, 70767, 70773-4; RG 84, file R39-5, T. H. Hogg to Calgary Power, March 5, 1931; RG 84, file B 39-5, memorandum from Johnston to R. A. Gibson, March 21, 1931.

27 E. J. Hart, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2011), 189.

CHAPTER 8: WAR MEASURES

1 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, extract of paper by Gaherty, February 15, 1939.

2 The Alberta Nitrogen Company was a subsidiary of Allied War Supplies Corporation.

3 The portfolios of Mines, Immigration, and Colonization and the Interior, as well as the office of Superintendent General of Indian Affairs were combined under Mines and Resources by Statutes of Canada, 1936, I Edw. VIII, c. 33, which came into force on December 1, 1936.

4 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, C. M. Walker to T. S. Mills, September 9, 1940.

5 Ibid.

6 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, G. A. Gaherty to R. A. Gibson, October 10, 1940.

7 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, P. J. Jennings to F.H.H. Williamson, September 7, 1940; C. M. Walker to T. S. Mills, September 16, 1940.

8 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Jennings to F.H.H. Williamson, September 7, 1940.

9 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from J. H. Byrne to F.H.H. Williamson, October 2, 1940.

10 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Wardle to R. A. Gibson, September 30, 1940.

11 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from R. A. Gibson to J. M. Wardle, October 2, 1940.

12 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Gaherty to R. A. Gibson, October 10, 1940; memorandum from J. M. Wardle to Gibson, October 25, 1940, marked “Confidential”; Gaherty to C. C. Camsell, November 11, 1940.

13 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from B. F. Haanel, Chief, Division of Fuels, October 29, 1940; Camsell to Gaherty, November 1, 1940.

14 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Gaherty to R. A. Gibson, October 10, 1940.

15 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from R. A. Gibson to James Smart, October 15, 1940; Charles Camsell to H. J. Symington, October 18, 1940.

16 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from R. A. Gibson to James Smart, October 31, 1940; Camsell to Gaherty, November 1, 1940.

17 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Howe to Crerar, November 12, 1940.

18 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Gibson to James Smart, November 12, 1940; memorandum from Gibson to Camsell, November 22, 1940.

19 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Crerar to Howe, November 13, 1940.

20 LAC, RG 85, 734, memorandum from R. A. Gibson, Director, Lands, Parks and Forests Branch, Department of Mines and Resources, to J. M. Wardle, December 2, 1940.

21 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memoranda from R. A. Gibson to Charles Camsell, November 14 (quoted), November 27, 1940.

22 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-5, Walker to James Smart, September 4, 1940. On Walker’s activity, see S. E. Markham-Starr, “W.S.J. Walker and the Canadian National Parks Association,” Leisure/Loisir 32 (2008): 649–80.

23 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Walker to James Smart, October 1, 1940 (quoted); Walker to R. J. Jennings, October 3, 1940; P. J. Jennings to James Smart, December 2, 1940.

24 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, R. A. Rooney to R. A. Gibson, November 22, 1940; Gibson to Rooney, November 26, 1940. The writing paper of the Alberta Fish and Game Association was festooned with cartoons of wildlife, and at the bottom appeared this memorable bit of poesy:

    Dad, your gun is in its case,
Your rod is on the wall.
Daddy, when you shooted ducks
Did you shoot ’em all?
When you killed the deer and fox
And cut the balsam tree
Couldn’t you have left a few
Fer Billy and fer me?…

    Daddy, wouldn’t you suppose
That if you really tried
You could save a little woods
And fields and countryside?
Kinda keep a savin’ up,
You and Uncle Len,
Just a little out-o-doors
Fer Billy and fer me?

25 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, mimeographed letter from Banff Advisory Council to Alberta MPs, November 27, 1940; R. J. Jennings to James Smart, December 2, 1940.

26 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, V. Meek to J. M. Wardle, November 26, 1940; Gibson to Camsell, November 29, 1940 (quoted).

27 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, clipping from Calgary Albertan, November 26, 1940; Crerar to Howe, November 30, 1940.

28 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, W. S. Edwards, Deputy Minister of Justice, to Charles Camsell, November 26, 1940; Howe to Crerar, December 3, 1940.

29 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, W. S. Edwards to Charles Camsell, December 10, 1940; Aberhart to Crerar, December 5, 1940; Crerar to Gaherty, December 16, 1940, enclosing PC 7382, December 13, 1940.

30 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, R. A. Gibson to James Smart, December 7, 1940; G. A. Gaherty to Charles Camsell, January 2, 1941.

31 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum to R. A. Gibson, January 3, February 27, 1941; memorandum from James Smart to Gibson, January 13, 1941. Departmental officials became concerned, however, when the Nakoda brought their families into the park with them, because they did not want to permit them to establish permanent residence in the town of Banff. Eventually, the Indian Agent for the band agreed to assume responsibility for supervising the Indian workers and for seeing that they did not remain once the job was completed. See LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-4, memorandum from Gibson to J. M. Wardle, March 3, 1941.

32 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, press release, April 10, 1941.

33 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Walker to Crerar, March 13, 1941, marked “Confidential”; Walker to F.H.H. Williamson, March 18, 1941.

34 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Walker to James Smart, April 25, 1941.

35 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, June 4, 1941, 3578.

36 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, June 4, 1941, 3763.

37 Statutes of Canada, 1941, 4-5 Geo VI, c. 22, An Act to Amend the Alberta Natural Resources Act. This short three-clause statute, assented to on June 14, 1941, formalized the memorandum of agreement (included in the act as a schedule) permitting the development of the Lake Minnewanka project. Clause three squared the legal circle: “The Minister of Mines and Resources shall have authority to grant the license referred to in the said agreement, notwithstanding the provisions of The National Parks Act, chapter thirty-three of the statutes of 1930 (First Session).”

38 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Smart to Gibson, October 21, 1941; LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-4, memorandum from Gibson to J. M. Wardle, October 28, 1941. Matthew Evenden explores the implications of drowning a landscape in “Immersed: Landscaping the Past at Lake Minnewanka,” in Placing Memory and Remembering Place in Canada, ed. J. Opp and J. C. Walsh (Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 2010), 247–70.

39 LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-4, Charles Camsell to G. A. Gaherty, March 20, 1942; memorandum from J. E. Spero to James Smart, April 2, 1942; memorandum from R. A. Gibson to C. W. Jackson, April 2, 1942.

40 LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-4, Charles Camsell to Gaherty, January 21, 1943.

41 LAC, RG 22, 238, December 4, 1941, Charles Camsell to Gaherty, December 4, 1941; memorandum from J. M. Wardle to Camsell, December 18, 1941; LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from J. E. Spero to file, July 9, 1943.

42 LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-4, Gaherty to J. M. Wardle, April 24, 1944; memorandum from Wardle to Charles Camsell, April 28, May 3, May 20, 1944.

43 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Smart to Professor F. Webster, April 13, 1942.

44 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Smart to R. A. Gibson, April 30, 1942.

45 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from James Smart, October 6, 1942; J. M. Wardle to G. A. Gaherty, October 14, 1942.

46 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-5, no. 21, J. A. Harrison to J.R.B. Coleman, November 10, 1955.

47 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Gibson to James Smart, December 13, 1944.

48 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from James Smart to R. A. Gibson, August 21, 1946; memorandum to Smart, September 9, 1946.

49 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, J. A. Mackinnon to James Smart, April 8, 1947. The company had $8 million worth of 5 per cent debentures, payable in US funds, which it desired to replace with “Canadian-pay” securities, saving foreign exchange.

50 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, A. G. Mackinnon to James Smart, April 8, 1947; R. A. Gibson to Smart, May 2, 1947; final licence for storage and development of water power, Lake Minnewanka and Cascade River, Banff National Park, Alberta, May 14, 1947. The rental payments varied according to how much the value of the lands was depreciated by commercial use from that which they would have as parklands.

51 Ironically, the drowning of a townsite, the old dams, and Devil’s Canyon created a new recreation attraction in the park, scuba diving. At a depth of approximately twenty metres in clear cold water, divers explore foundations, chimneys, bridge piers, a concrete dam and other relics. See R. W. Sanford, Lake Minnewanka: The Spirit of the Waters (Banff: Lake Minnewanka Boat Tours, 1999), 44–45. See also the Banff National Park website, http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/natcul/natcul4m1.aspx, for detailed descriptions of the diving sites and a map.

CHAPTER 9: PUBLIC POWER

1 See Brian Brennan, The Good Steward: The Ernest C. Manning Story (Calgary: Fifth House, 2008), for a full treatment of Manning’s political counterrevolution, although Brennan does not present it as such. For a review of The Good Steward, see H. V. Nelles, “That Old-Time Religion,” Literary Review of Canada (January–February 2009). Most of the literature on Social Credit deals with its early insurrectionary phase; the Manning years are curiously understudied. J. J. Barr, in The Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of Social Credit in Alberta (Calgary: McClelland and Stewart, 1974), briefly discusses “How Manning Used Power” (132–48) and his free enterprise ideology (135–38). Alvin Finkel, in The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), deals with the early phases of the Manning government in a chapter entitled “Hot Economy and a Cold War” (99–140), in which Manning’s anti-socialist views are elaborated and the potential nationalization of Calgary Power is briefly treated (126).

2 This figure is drawn from PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1437, Premier E. C. Manning to G. A. Gaherty, July 11, 1947. Presumably, the figure was actually lower in 1945.

3 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc 69.289/794, memorandum re: meeting of Alberta Power Commission, December 15, 1944.

4 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1347, Ora B. Moore, MLA, to E. C. Manning, February 15, 1946, enclosing letter from Glenn F. Pauk, Ponoka, February 11, 1946; memorandum from A. Bradshaw, Director of Technical Development, to L. D. Byren, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs, April 17, 1946, re: “Ownership of Hydro-Electric Power Plants.”

5 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1347, W. D. King, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, to G. A. Gaherty, August 1, 1946; Manning to Gaherty, October 8, 1946.

6 Cottingham’s report is quoted in PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1437, report of the Alberta Power Commission to E. C. Manning, October 22, 1947.

7 LAC, RG 22, 126, file 99-2-93, G. A. Gaherty to J. A. Glen, April 30, 1947; memorandum from W.J.F. Pratt to J. M. Wardle, May 2, 1947.

8 John Richards and Larry Pratt, Prairie Capitalism: Power and Influence in the New West (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979), 81–82.

9 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1615, report of the Alberta Power Commission, Plan for Rural Electrification, March 15, 1947.

10 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1437, Manning to G. A. Gaherty, July 11, 1947.

11 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1437, Gaherty to Manning, July 25, August 28, 1947.

12 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69,289/1347, Milner to Manning, December 5, 1947, marked “Personal and Confidential.”

13 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1437, report of the Alberta Power Commission to E. C. Manning, October 22, 1947.

14 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1615, Reid to E. C. Manning, March 14, 1948.

15 Richards and Pratt, Prairie Capitalism, 82; PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1615, “Financial Counsel” (mimeographed), November 26, 1948.

16 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1615, memorandum re: electrification plebiscite, August 17, 1948. Most rural constituencies favoured public ownership, and Edmonton turned it down only by 21,478 to 22,351. However, Calgary went against the proposal 26,325 to 11,478, Lethbridge by 4,237 to 2,291, and Medicine Hat by 5,186 to 1,214. Manning is quoted in PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1615, “Financial Counsel” (mimeographed), November 26, 1948.

17 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1615, N. A. Shandro to E. C. Manning, September 14, 1948. The founders of the association came from Stettler, Acme, Swalwell, Three Hills, Ponoka, LaGlace, Drumheller, Shandro, Cochrane, and Calgary.

18 See, for example, PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69/289/1615, text of “This Week” commentary on radio station CFCN, November 20, 1948.

19 PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1615, resolution passed by first annual meeting of Alberta Rural Electrification Association, July 7, 1950; text of articles in Farm and Ranch Review, 1951; PAA, Premiers’ Papers, acc. 69.289/1677, notice of motion by A.J.E. Liesemer, February 25, 1952.

CHAPTER 10: REVERSING RIVERS

1 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum, April 13, 1928; Charles Stewart to John Brownlee, April 14, 1928; G. A. Gaherty to J. A. Mackinnon, May 26, 1948. In 1928, Gaherty had, in fact, “stated that in his opinion the release of any water from the storage reservoir for scenic purposes at Banff would imperil the whole project,” adding that a flow of 425 cfs at the Spray mouth was “utterly out of the question.” See LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from J. M. Wardle, April 13, 1928.

2 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, R. A. Gibson to F. R. Burfield, October 1, 1942; Superintendent P. J. Jennings to James Smart, September 24, 1942.

3 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from James Smart to J. E. Spero, October 30, 1942.

4 Parks Branch director Roy Gibson observed, “I do not think that our officers should discuss even informally with the officers of the Calgary Power Company, or for that matter any other company, schemes to alter the watercourses in National Parks. Most of these schemes have very far-reaching effects.” LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from Gibson to James Smart, December 13, 1944.

5 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from James Smart to R. A. Gibson, November 30, 1945; LAC, RG 84, file B68, memorandum from Smart to Gibson, December 3, 1945.

6 See GA, “Highlights in [Calgary Power] Company’s Growth,” in the finding aid to company papers.

7 LAC, RG 22, vol. 238, file 33-4-10, H. L. Keenleyside to G. A. Gaherty, June 23, 1947; W.J.S. Walker to Keenleyside, August 16, 1947.

8 LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-10, W. M. Neal to C. D. Howe, September 4, 1947; Keenleyside to Neal, October 13, 1947, marked “Confidential”; Neal to Keenleyside, November 7, 1947, marked “Private”; RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from J. E. Spero, April 22, 1948.

9 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, V. A. Newhall to W.L.M. King, May 6,1948; Manning to Mackinnon, May 21, 1948.

10 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Gaherty to J. A. Mackinnon, May 26, 1948.

11 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from R. A. Gibson to James Smart, May 27, 1948.

12 Mackinnon’s predecessor, J. A. Glen, a Manitoban, had a heart attack in the summer of 1947; first C. D. Howe, then Mackinnon acted in Glen’s stead for a number of months. The deputy minister, H. L. Keenleyside, had moved over from External Affairs in 1947 to replace the long-serving Charles Camsell at Mines and Resources. See H. L. Keenleyside, On the Bridge of Time, vol. 2 of Memoirs of Hugh L. Keenleyside (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982), 281–89.

13 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Mackinnon to Gaherty, May 31, 1948.

14 Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C. D. Howe: A Biography (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979).

15 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Howe to Mackinnon, June 15, 1948.

16 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-8, memorandum from T. E. Dunn, June 1, 1948.

17 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-8, Mackinnon to Manning, June 12, 1948; memorandum from Ben Russell to Manning, June 18, 1948 (quoted); LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-10, Manning to Mackinnon, June 18, 1948.

18 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-8, W. A. Mather to Mackinnon, June 22, 1948; A.D.P. Heeney to Mackinnon, June 23, 1948, marked “Confidential”; Mackinnon to Manning, June 23, 1948; LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-10, Manning to W.L.M. King, June 23, 1948; King to Manning, June 28, 1948.

19 LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-10, memorandum from acting deputy minister to Sinclair, July 26, 1948 (quoted); memorandum from R. A. Gibson to H. L. Keenleyside, July 28, 1948.

20 LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-10, memorandum from acting deputy minister to minister, July 21, 1948; LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, R. A. Gibson to James Smart, August 9, 1948.

21 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from Gibson to V. Meek, August 31, 1948; memorandum from J. A. Hutchison to Mackinnon, August 21, 1948; R.E.W. Edwards to Mackinnon, August 17, 1948.

22 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-8, memorandum from R. A. Gibson to V. Meek, August 31, 1948.

23 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, J. A. Mackinnon to E. C. Manning, September 9, 1948; A.D.P. Heeney to Mackinnon, September 10, 1948, marked “Confidential”; LAC, RG 22, 238, file 33-4-10, Fraser Duncan to Mackinnon, August 31, 1948, marked “Personal”.

24 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memorandum from Gibson to James Smart, September 30, 1948; Gibson to C. W. Jackson, November 2, 1948. Within the Alberta provincial government, fisheries officials raised only tepid opposition to the Spray Lakes project, mainly on the grounds that raising water levels would drown shallow fish-spawning beds. See PAA, acc. 72.302, Minister of Agriculture Papers, box 7, file 341, correspondence of E. S. Heustis, Fish and Game Commissioner, with Ben Russell, Director of Water Resources, 1947–49; memorandum from Heustis to N. E. Tanner, Minister, August 29, 1949. Heustis wrote the following to Tanner:

    It would appear necessary that power development proceed as the demands of the province require, but it would also appear desirable that before any project of this kind is allowed to proceed, that an opportunity be given to this department to make and investigation to determine just what influence the project will have on the stream concerned and its tributaries. The Government would then be in a position to decide whether the project is doing sufficient harm to warrant requesting its discontinuance, or whether the company having disturbed or destroyed the fishery in a certain stream, should be required to reimburse the fishery interest to the extent of supplying fish hatcheries, and rearing ponds for the introduction of sport fish into these streams on an angling basis and of sufficient size to allow for angling during that particular season.

    Included with the memorandum was a report by R. B. Miller and W. H. MacDonald entitled “The Effect of the Spray Lakes Development on the Sport Fishery,” June 21, 1949.

25 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, James Smart to Devereux Butcher, June 9, 1949.

26 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Walker to R. A. Gibson, November 15, 1948; LAC, RG 22, 89, file 560, Mackinnon to Walker, November 22, 1948.

27 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, memoranda from James Smart to R. A. Gibson, September 30, November 2, 1948; LAC, RG 22, 89, file 560, memorandum from Gibson to James Smart, January 18, 1949. Typical of this material was a lengthy summary by T. E. Dunn dated January 14, 1949, also preserved in RG 22, 89, file 560, which listed all the “Intrustions [sic] Calgary Power Limited” and concluded: “In the last thirty-six years the Calgary Power Ltd., has continually brought pressure to bear to establish storage reservoirs, power plants, canals and transmission lines within the park area, or to have further areas removed from the park. Other corporations may well press for concessions. And why should they not?”

28 LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, Mackinnon to David A. Ure, January 25, 1949; Gaherty to Ure, February 7, 1949 (quoted); Ure to Mackinnon, February 9, 1949. For the other side of the correspondence, see PAA, acc. 72.302, Minister of Agriculture Papers, box 7, file 341, Spray Lakes 1949, Manning to St. Laurent, March 2, 1949; A. F. Duncan to David Ure, March 16, 1949. Premier Manning’s letter impressed the prime minister, who, according to the minister of agriculture, pushed the bill in cabinet.

29 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, March 23, 1949, 1910–11; LAC, RG 84, file B39-8, J. A. Mackinnon to D. A. Ure, March 30, 1949.

30 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, James Smart to R. A. Gibson, September 14, 1949; Norman Marr to Smart, December 2, 1949.

31 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, Gibson to A.C.L. Adams, August 30, 1949.

32 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from W. Nason to Gibson, September 7, 1949; James Smart to Gibson, September 14, 1949; Nason to Gibson, October 3, 1949; memorandum from Smart to Gibson, November 28, 1949.

33 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, T. D. Stanley to J. A. Hutchison, November 22, 1949.

34 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, J. A. Hutchison to James Smart, November 23, 1949; memorandum from Smart to R. A. Gibson, December 9, 1949; Gibson to G. A. Gaherty, December 9, 1949.

35 LAC, RG 22, 316, file 33-4-10, memorandum from James Smart to J. M. Wardle, May 22, 1951; Harold Riley to the Deputy Minister of Justice, October 24, 1951; PAA, acc. 72.302, Minister of Agriculture Papers, box 10, file 488, Spray Lakes 1950; box 14, file 641, Spray Lakes 1951.

36 LAC, RG 22, 316, file 33-4-10, memorandum from J. M. Wardle to the Deputy Minister, July 25 1951; memorandum for the Deputy Minister, January 19, 1952.

37 LAC, RG 22, 316, file 33-4-10, memorandum from Deputy Minister Brigadier General H. A. Young to file, January 30, April 21, 1952; memorandum from James Smart to Young, March 4, 1952; G. A. Gaherty to Young, May 9, 1952; Young to Gaherty, May 27, 1952.

38 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, T. D. Stanley to J. A. Hutchison, February 2, 1951; Robert H. Winters to G. A. Gaherty, February 9, 1951.

39 LAC, RG 84, file B 39-8, R. A. Mackie to J. A. Hutchison, October 23, 1952; memorandum from H. A. deVeber to Hutchison, November 4, 1952; Hutchison to James Smart, November 14, 1952.

40 LAC, RG 84, file B39-5, memorandum from J. A. Hutchison to file, September 9, 1955; T. D. Stanley to Hutchison, September 22, 1955.

CHAPTER 11: LEAVING THE BOW

1 In 1928, Calgary Power leased the City of Calgary’s Victoria Park steam plant to meet peak winter demand but owned only hydroelectric generating stations.

2 PAA, acc. 90.618, Public Utilities Board records, Calgary Power, waterpower leases, 1909–72; PAA, acc. 72.302, Minister of Agriculture Papers, file 46, Ghost Dam 1947, and file 47, Kananaskis Development. For a discussion of the impact of these hydro developments on the fish of the upper Bow watershed, see C. Armstrong, M. Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), ch. 8.

3 The provincial government had inserted a clause in the earlier Spray Lakes licence requiring the company to build flood-control works before it undertook further storage work if called upon by the government. See Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, River Returns, 265–66.

4 This additional capacity was made possible by raising the level of the water stored behind the dams in the headponds at the Spray and Rundle plants; see PAA, acc. 90.618, Public Utilities Board records, Calgary Power, waterpower leases, 1909–72.

5 Ibid.

6 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1954; report to shareholders, March 24, 1955.

7 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1955, 1956.

8 Edmonton’s municipal generating system is now called Epcor.

9 Average sulphur content of Canadian coal ranged from 3 to 5 per cent; see TransAlta Utilities Corporation, Some Facts 1985 (Calgary: TransAlta Utilities, 1985), 7.

10 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1956.

11 The tie line also permitted Calgary Power to begin selling wholesale power to the City of Red Deer.

12 Calgary Power had constructed additional tie lines after signing interchange agreements with Lethbridge in 1927 and Medicine Hat in 1953.

13 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1954–58; quotation from Gaherty’s report to shareholders, April 3, 1957 in the 1956 report.

14 Reports to shareholders, March 26, 1959 and April 4, 1960, in Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1958–59. The contract specified a firm price for the first 240,000 kw, with the charge for the remainder to be negotiated.

15 Report to shareholders, March 28, 1961, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1960. Doubling the scale of Wabamun # 3 meant that with the strip mine producing one million tons of coal annually (with an eventual capacity of 2.5 million tons), the smaller, older units #1 and # 2 would require 5 per cent more fuel per kwh, making the cost per kilowatt 20 per cent higher than a proposed unit # 4, which was to have almost 300,000 kw of capacity; see report to shareholders, March 25, 1963, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1962. Time passes. After fifty-four years of producing, on average, 3.7 million megawatt hours of electricity, the four units of the Wabamun facility reached the end of their useful life early in the twenty-first century. They were decommissioned beginning in 2002 in a long-running process that culminated in the 2011 toppling of the candy-striped smoke stacks. See the TransAlta website, http://www.transalta.com/facilities/plants-operation/wabamun/decommissioning.

16 Report to shareholders, March 26, 1959, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1958.

17 See PAA, acc. 90.618, Public Utilities Board records, Calgary Power, waterpower leases, 1909–72; reports to shareholders, March 28, 1961, March 21, 1962, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1960–61.

18 Report to shareholders, March 25, 1963, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1962.

19 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1963–69.

20 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1969–72.

21 PAA, acc. 90.618, Public Utilities Board records, Calgary Power, waterpower leases, 1909–72. As at Bighorn, the company would pay the province a water rental of $40,000 annually plus a sliding scale of $1.30 per horsepower per year at 40 per cent load factor, $1.25 for 40–45 per cent load, $1.20 for 50–60 per cent load, $1.15 for 60–70 per cent load, $1.10 for 70–80 per cent load, $1.05 for 80–90 per cent load, and $1.00 for 90–100 per cent load.

22 Of course, the company did not have sufficient stored water to produce this wattage on anything close to a continuous basis.

23 Report of president A. W. Howard to shareholders, February 16, 1973, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1972.

24 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1968.

25 The Alberta licence to divert the upper Ghost into Lake Minnewanka was revised in 1947 to increase the size of the diversion for another fifty years.

26 PAA, acc. 990.618, Public Utilities Board records, Calgary Power, waterpower leases, 1909–72.

27 Report to shareholders by president A. W. Howard, February 19, 1971, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Report, 1970.

28 PAA, acc. 90.618, Public Utilities Board records, Calgary Power, waterpower leases, 1909–72. These two volumes commence with the agreement between the company and Environment Minister William J. Yurko, September 28, 1972, and the changes to the various agreements are interleaved in them on sheets of yellow paper bearing that same date.

29 LAC, RG 85, vol. 734, memorandum from R. A. Gibson to J. B. Challies, March 15, 1923; RG 84, file B39-5, V. M. Drury to Minister of the Interior, April 12, 1923.

30 Reports to shareholders by president A. W. Thompson, March 6, 1970, February 19, 1971, Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1969–70.

31 Cold precipitators used at the Sundance plants were supposed to eliminate 99.5 per cent of the solid particulates, but differences between the mineral content of the coal from the Highvale mine and that produced at the Whitewood mine used at the older Wabamun units required the installation of hot precipitators at the latter, a first for any Canadian utility.

32 TransAlta Utilities, Some Facts 1980 (Calgary: TransAlta Utilities, 1980).

33 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1972–76. The quotation is from the report to shareholders by the chair, A. W. Howard, and the president, M. M. Williams, February 20, 1975.

34 Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1975–76.

35 In 1975, the company also received approval from the Alberta Electric Utility Planning Council for construction of a two million kw plant near Camrose, forty miles southeast of Edmonton, where it controlled substantial coal reserves, but the provincial government ultimately withdrew this permission owing to doubts that the land mined could be successfully rehabilitated for agriculture afterwards. See Calgary Power Ltd., Annual Reports, 1974–76.

36 TransAlta Utilities, Annual Report, 1982. The company’s application to build two more units at Keephills was refused in 1982.

37 TransAlta Utilities, Annual Reports, 1982–84.

38 TransAlta Utilities, Annual Reports, 1983–85.

39 In 1985, TransAlta’s customers were divided as follows: retail (residential, commercial), 15.3 per cent; industrial, 43.8 per cent; wholesale (Calgary, Lethbridge, Red Deer), 35.4 per cent; farms, 5.5 per cent. TransAlta Utilities, Some Facts 1985 (Calgary: TransAlta Utilities, 1985).

40 TransAlta Utilities, Annual Report, 1982. In 1982, TransAlta’s average cost of production was $1.98 per kwh versus $3.87 for Edmonton Power and $4.73 for Alberta Power’s less concentrated system, producing a provincial average cost of $2.74. TransAlta Utilities, Some Facts 1984 (Calgary: TransAlta Utilities, 1984).

41 By 1986, TransAlta’s predicted average costs were $3.12 per kwh versus $2.71 for Edmonton Power and $4.20 for Alberta Power, yielding a provincial average of $3.12. TransAlta Utilities, Some Facts 1987 (Calgary: TransAlta Utilities, 1987).

42 TransAlta Utilities, Some Facts 1990 (Calgary: TransAlta Utilities, 1990).

43 TransAlta Utilities, Some Facts 1985.

44 Alberta Water Resources Commission, South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Program, Hearings, Strathmore, Alberta, December 4, 1984, II, 148–63, transcript, Legislative Library of Alberta, Edmonton.

45 Alberta Water Resources Commission, South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Program, Hearings, Strathmore, Alberta, December 4, 1984, II, brief of TransAlta Utilities, 182–224, transcript, Legislative Library of Alberta, Edmonton.

46 Alberta Water Resources Commission, South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Program, Hearings, Calgary, November 7, 1984, I, 322–25, typescript, Legislative Library of Alberta, Edmonton.

47 Jennings admitted that the Bow River Protection Society numbered only a dozen or so persons because it was believed that this was more effective for highly informed lobbying than a mass movement.

48 Alberta Water Resources Commission, South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Program, Hearings, High River, Alberta, November 8, 1984, 43–47, transcript, Legislative Library of Alberta, Edmonton.

49 Calgary Power, Some Facts about Calgary Power Ltd. 1960 (Calgary: Calgary Power, 1961); TransAlta Utilities, 1994 Some Facts (Calgary: TransAlta Utilities, 1995). Between 1990 and 1992, hydro production declined from 2.051 billion kwh to 1.502 billion kwh, while thermal output rose from 27.635 to 29.311 billion kwh.

50 Alberta Water Resources Commission, South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Program, Hearings, Strathmore, Alberta, December 4, 1984, 110–21, testimony of Alberta Weather Modification Co-Op, Red Deer.

51 Alberta Water Resources Commission, South Saskatchewan River Basin Planning Program, Hearings, Calgary, November 6, 1984, 89–90, testimony of Mark Schmitke.

CHAPTER 12: CONCLUSION

1 Thomas P. Hughes, in Networks of Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), uses the phrase “technological momentum.” Paul David develops the theory of path dependence in a much-debated essay, “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” American Economic Review 75, no. 2 (1985): 332–37. As the phrase among the defenders of this concept goes, “history matters.”

2 TransAlta Utilities website, www.transalta.com/facilities, and Bow River Basin Council, The 2005 Report on the State of the Bow River (Calgary: Bow River Basin Council, 2005), 28–29.

3 Alberta Utilities Commission, Alberta’s Hydroelectric Energy Resources (Edmonton: Hatch Engineering, 2010). The likeliest site was downstream from the point at which the Highwood River joined the Bow near Dalemead; this would create a huge reservoir which would back up the water as far as the eastern suburbs of the city. Mainly for irrigation purposes, this dam might also permit an interbasin transfer as part of a larger scheme to redistribute water supplies across southern Alberta.

4 Richard White, The Organic Machine: The Remaking of the Columbia River (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995).

5 The raw data records the mean streamflow in cubic metres per second (m³/s) for the week at Calgary. For example, in 1912, in Week 4, mean streamflow came to 37.5 m³/s; in the same week in 1962, the recorded mean was 74.7 m³/s. Similarly, in 1914, the mean flow in week 24 came to 316.8 m³/s; in 1964, the number was 278 m³/s. There could be substantial variation in flow, night and day, even hour to hour, as water was released for power generation. The mean simply notes the midpoint of readings. And there could be annual variation as well: the week 4 average flow was 37.8 m³/s, but during the period 1912 to 1919, that week’s flow reached a maximum of 39.9 in 1917 and a minimum of 23.5 in 1914. The data are derived from Alberta Environment, Water Management Division, South Saskatchewan River Basin Historical Natural Flows, 1912–95, Version 2.02.

6 William Cronon, in Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1996), loosely defines first nature as “original, prehuman nature” and second nature as “the artificial nature that people erect atop first nature” (xix). He explores the interaction of the two natures (in the hinterland and in the city) under the dominion of urban capitalist commodity flows in separate chapters devoted to grain, lumber, and meat.

7 The phenomena discussed in the following paragraphs are explored in the last three chapters of C. Armstrong, M. Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009), to which interested readers are referred for greater detail.

8 Alberta Forestry, Lands, and Wildlife, Bow River Recreation Survey, 1987, vol. 4, University of Calgary Library. This survey concluded that 70 per cent of Calgary households used the Bow Valley for recreation during a twelve-month period, representing an estimated 3.48 million user days.

9 Two recent reports summarize this ecological analysis: Banff-Bow Valley Task Force, “Trends in Aquatic Ecosystems,” sec. 4.4.3 in Technical Report, 101–10, and Bow River Basin Council, The 2005 Report on the State of the Bow River Basin (Calgary: Bow River Basin Council, 2005), 22–28. In the latter report, each of the eight chapters that follow on each reach of the river contains a section describing ecosystem changes. Both reports have extensive bibliographies.

10 This position is advocated by the Heritage River advocacy group in Canada, American Rivers in the United States, and some fishers and biologists attempting to restore the native species in the Bow watershed.

11 Jennifer Earle, a fisheries biologist with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, quoted in “Species Recovery Plan in Motion for Alberta’s Cutthroat Trout,” Globe and Mail, August 5, 2011.